Thomas Mann once wrote: "Tolstoy's strongest, most tormenting, deepest and most productive interest has to do with death." The title story of this collection concerns Ivan Ilyich, a man "whose life is most simple and ordinary and most terrible".

He flits around pleasantly, getting promoted, choosing curtains and not paying much attention to his wife, even when his children die. He is said to be a decent man and yet, when his death by a mysterious illness comes horrifyingly close, his friends only think about what they can gain. As Ivan comes to terms with the shallowness of his life, he finds comfort in a peasant servant. Whether he finds peace within himself is another question.

Tolstoy asks: is there the smallest shred of meaning in life to which we can cling as we come to the inevitable or must we howl, alone, in the darkness? Mankind's fear is a result of the kind of sham civilised life that Ivan leads: it is only those close to nature who can die peacefully.

The other stories cover a wide range of milieux, and in "Hadji Murat"" the eponymous hero represents the kind of "natural" man Tolstoy admired: Murat, a Chechen Muslim leader, is devout, brave and fierce, as opposed to the dull, hypocritical Tsar; but Murat is killed, senselessly, as a result of a misunderstanding. There are annoyances in this translation: the most simple French phrases ("Quelle horreur!") are given English footnotes, and its attempts at colloquialism are rather creaky. But on the whole, this is a fitting monument to Tolstoy's battles with what it is that makes us human.